Simon Commission

Simon Commission, group appointed in November 1927 by the British Conservative government under Stanley Baldwin to report on the efficacy of the administrative provisions outlined by the Government of India Act of 1919. Formally named the Indian Statutory Commission, the group was popularly addressed as the Simon Commission for its chair, John Simon. The exclusion of Indian political leaders from the commission was met with a storm of criticism in India. The group nevertheless published a two-volume report in 1930, mainly the work of Simon.

Background

The Government of India Act of 1919 delineated a series of administrative provisions to address the growing demands of Indians for a more representative government. Most notably, the act established a federal government structure in the subcontinent and introduced dyarchy at the provincial level. It also stipulated that after 10 years a commission would be set up to evaluate the functioning of the British Indian government and assess the feasibility of constituting a responsible government in British India.

The review was undertaken by the Simon Commission. It consisted of seven members—four from the Conservative Party, two from the Labour Party, and one from the Liberal Party—and was chaired by Liberal John Simon, a lawyer. One of the Labour members was Clement Attlee, who later became the British prime minister (1945–51). The officials visited India twice between 1928 and 1929.

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India’s reaction to the commission

In December 1927, a month after the Simon Commission was set up, the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) and a section of the Muslim League, headed by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, boycotted the commission because of the lack of Indian representation. The British responded by challenging the Indian nationalist leaders to draft a constitution for India. This led to the Congress Party forming the All Parties Conference, an association of several Indian political parties, to oversee the composition of a constitution. A committee set up by the association created the Nehru Report of 1928, which, among other things, demanded dominion status (that is, to become an autonomous community within the British Empire) for India. (Congress Party leaders eventually grew dissatisfied with the prospect of dominion status and declared their resolution of seeking Purna Swaraj [“Complete Self-Rule”] in 1930.)

The public sentiment about the Simon Commission echoed that of India’s political leaders. When the officials visited various Indian cities, they were met with mass protests and the slogan “Simon go back,” often written across black banners.

During one such demonstration in Lahore (now in Pakistan) on October 30, 1928, prominent political leader Lajpat Rai, who was heading the nonviolent march, was attacked by police. He died from his injuries in November. This event prompted independence activists Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev Thapar, Shivram Rajguru, and Chandrasekhar Azad to seek revenge for Rai’s death. They plotted the assassination of James Scott, the superintendent of police who had assaulted Rai and authorized the attack on Rai’s fellow protesters. However, Singh and Rajguru instead shot and killed the assistant superintendent of police, John Saunders, whom they mistook for Scott. They escaped immediate arrest but were eventually caught. Azad was killed in a police shootout in February 1931, and Singh, Rajguru, and Thapar were hanged in March 1931.

The Simon Report and its aftermath

Despite the public dissent and boycott, the Simon Commission published a two-volume report in 1930. Regarded as a classic state document, the report proposed provincial autonomy in India but rejected parliamentary responsibility at the center. It recommended the abolition of dyarchy at the provincial level, accepted the idea of federalism, and sought to retain direct contact between the British crown and the Indian states. However, before its publication, the report’s conclusions had been outdated by the Irwin Declaration of October 1929, which stated that dominion status was to be the goal of Indian constitutional development. Deliberations about drafting a constitution for India subsequently continued in three sessions of the Round Table Conference held between 1930 and 1932. The discussions culminated in the Government of India Act of 1935, which granted some degree of self-governance to India. The act, among other provisions, terminated dyarchy at the provincial level while implementing it at the center, introduced elections to the legislative assemblies in the provinces, and widened the electorate.

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